January 1, 2019

Welcome, readers, to the new year. It’s time for our favorite armchair exercise: predictions for the year in education.

The Greeks asked Tiresias, the blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, for their advice. Last year, I consulted Dewey, my rescue dog with cataracts; his visions proved to be as cloudy as his eyesight. No treats for him. I’m back to going solo. (More on how we fared at the end of the column.)

There’s a wild card this year: Gavin Newsom. Gov. Jerry Brown, while sometimes mystical, proved to be true to his word. Newsom has made some vague promises, like a “cradle to career” education system, and President Donald Trump is messing with California’s reliance on stock profits for revenue, so 2019 could prove a forecaster’s nightmare.

The scale ranges from 1 to 5 “Fensters,” with 1 meaning no chance and 5 meaning highly likely. Tally along with me and we’ll settle up this time next year.

Charter schools

Charter schools are in for a tough year. The great protector, Jerry Brown, is gone. Wealthy backers of charter schools spent big and lost big when their candidates, Antonio Villaraigosa for governor and Marshall Tuck for state superintendent, went down in the 2018 election. Now the state’s 1,200-plus charter schools may pay the price. The California Teachers Association and the California School Boards Association have been waiting for a chance to shackle charters. Here’s how they might do it legislatively:

Transparency and accountability: Many school districts already require charter schools to comply with the state’s open meetings and public records laws. In 2019, the Legislature will require compliance by all charter schools. Brown twice vetoed bills imposing the state’s conflict of interest law on charter schools run by nonprofit boards, saying the language needed exceptions. Gov. Newsom won’t raise the same objections.

Likelihood that open meetings, public records and conflict of interest requirements will pass:

Appeals process: Speaking of conflicts of interest, some school districts will never approve a charter, no matter how worthy. That’s why the charter law provides two levels of appeal, first by elected boards of county offices of education and then the State Board of Education. But in the name of local control, the Legislature will limit grounds for an appeal and may eliminate appeals to the state board.

Likelihood of curbing grounds for an appeal:

Likelihood of eliminating appeals to the state board:

Financial impact: This is where charters could get whacked. Current law does not allow authorizers to consider a charter school’s financial impact on a school district; other criteria and parent choice determine approval. That could change. Depending on how it’s written, a bill could be an open invitation for school boards to deny applications. With strike-bound LA teachers calling for a charter moratorium, lawmakers could pass what newly elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond euphemistically calls a “pause” while they mull over a financial impact bill.

Likelihood that either a moratorium or a bill letting a district consider the collective financial impact of charter schools will pass:

Teacher strikes

This will be the year that “Red for Ed” — the symbol of teacher discontent that united striking teachers in conservative states like West Virginia and Arizona ­— hits blue California. Teacher activism could bring to a boil the stew of tensions in school districts facing cuts in programming amid rising pension and special education expenses, declines in student enrollment and a projected leveling of state revenue. Unions are eyeing the reserves that districts say they will need for tougher times.

United Teachers Los Angeles has set Jan. 10 for the first strike in 30 years in Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest district, with no talk of a deal as the year turned. Teachers in financially troubled Oakland Unified and elsewhere are watching for cues.

Likelihood that the union and teachers will settle before Jan. 10:

Likelihood that a strike in L.A. Unified will last until the Martin Luther King holiday on Jan. 21:

Likelihood that teachers in a half-dozen or more districts in California also strike this year:

School construction

Brown hated debt and opposed the $9 billion school construction bond that voters passed in 2016. That money has been divvied up, so this year, the Legislature will likely vote to place at least one construction bond for the 2020 ballot and maybe another for 2022. The battle will be over making the allocation formula of state matching funding more equitable. A Getting Down to Facts study concluded the current system favors property-wealthy districts, to the disadvantage of many rural districts and districts with low-income families. But the current winners won’t give up easily.

Likelihood of a pre-K to community college construction bond on the 2020 ballot:

Likelihood of that with a significant change in the state allocation system:

11th grade testing

Thwarted by Gov. Brown’s veto last fall, Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, promises to reintroduce a bill to allow school districts to substitute the SAT or ACT college admissions tests for the Smarter Balanced assessments, which the state requires all high school juniors to take. In his veto message, Brown urged giving the University of California more time to decide whether to use Smarter Balanced scores as an admissions criterion. UC and CSU will ask for another year to consider the option, but O’Donnell will say he’s not content to wait and he has the support of dozens of school districts. Besides Brown, the biggest opponent has been State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson; his successor, Thurmond, supports the idea.

Likelihood that this time, it will pass:

Public pensions

Within the next several weeks, the California Supreme Court will rule on a case challenging a 70-year-old court decision that gave public union employees the vested right to whatever pension benefits were in effect their first day on the job. Gov. Brown hoped the court would overturn the precedent before he left office, so public employers and the Legislature could scale back future benefits, potentially saving money for the state, school districts and local governments. The case before it, Cal Fire v. CalPERS, is narrow, but the court will likely use it to open the door to more definitive rulings. Unions will not like the direction that the court will take.

School funding

This year, the Legislature will pass and Gov. Newsom will sign Assembly Bill 39, setting a goal of raising per-student funding to the level of the top 10 states — at least $35 billion more — in coming years. That will be the easy part. Accomplishing it will require either raising new taxes (see next item) or devoting a bigger share of the General Fund to Proposition 98, the formula that sets the funding level for K-12 schools and community colleges. Newsom, like his predecessors, won’t budge on the minimum amount, even though the General Fund could have as much as $15 billion extra to spend in 2019-20.

Likelihood that Newsom will fund only the minimum Prop. 98 guarantee:

Higher taxes

In October, civil rights and community groups got confirmation they had gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on the 2020 ballot that will be the first major challenge to Proposition 13’s tight restrictions on property taxes. Through higher taxes on business and commercial properties, a “split roll” initiative would raise between an estimated $6 billion and $10 billion annually. Most of that revenue would go to local governments with 40 percent going to K-12 schools and community colleges. But the initiative will face a tough fight from business groups and some education advocates who want legislators to negotiate changes with the sponsors to raise more money for schools — and perhaps preschools and early education. Others want a different measure, with broader tax reform.

Talks have yet to start but likelihood that they lead to agreement for a revised initiative late in 2019:

Universal preschool

With the Legislative Analyst’s Office predicting a big surplus in the state’s General Fund in 2019-20, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, a father of four young children, can make good on his promise to spend a lot more money on early childhood education. But legislators who see an opening for funding universal preschool next year will be disappointed. He’ll likely move deliberately, using one-time money instead of billions in ongoing funding, to narrow differences in reimbursement rates among providers, set uniform requirements and add incentives for teachers to get college degrees.

Likelihood that Newsom lays out a multi-year plan for state-subsidized preschool for all low-income children:

Data movement

Gov. Jerry Brown transformed how California schools are financed and governed though the Local Control Funding Formula. But his obstinate opposition to creating a functioning statewide data system has prevented school districts, researchers and policy makers from understanding how well the system is working.

Brown believed that more statewide, uniform data collection could undermine local control and arouse meddling bureaucrats and overreaching legislators. Newsom has no such aversion. Building a data system that expands CALPADS (the existing K-12 data system) and links it with higher education data, the workforce and a yet-to-be-built early childhood database is a key recommendation of the three dozen Getting Down to Facts studies in 2018 and a new report, The Master Plan for Higher Education in California and State Workforce Needs, by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

Likelihood that in 2019, Newsom and legislative leaders create a timeline and a plan for a statewide data system:

Free community college tuition

For decades California led the nation in making community college affordable. The per-credit cost was the nation’s lowest and all low-income students had their fees waived. But other states have created “college promise programs,” offering free tuition, and last year the Legislature created the California College Promise, with $46 million to waive the first year of tuition for students not already eligible. Newsom, fulfilling a campaign promise, will double that with free tuition for a second year ­for students who commit to take a full load of courses for two years.

Likelihood for an appropriation that will save students $2,208 in tuition and boost the transfer rate to California State University and University of California and the number of associate’s degrees students earn:

Exit Betsy DeVos

It’s hard to imagine U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos enjoying her job. Civil rights groups and teachers unions regularly pillory her for her lack of knowledge and experience in public schools. Congress has rejected her proposals to expand school vouchers. In a tell-all book about Trump, former senior adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed Trump nicknamed her “Ditzy DeVos.”

It’s only going to get worse when the Democrats take over the House this month and summon her to the Hill to badger her over the latest Obama-era guidance that her department rescinded. Even some of those sympathetic to her agree it’s time for “a dignified return to private life,” as Fordham Foundation President Michael Petrilli put it in a post-midterm election column. By late summer, she’ll take his advice.

Likelihood that DeVos will quit in 2019:

Other predictions:

Likelihood that the number of districts predicting an inability to pay their bills within three years will more than double in the report they will file this spring, from 24 in 2018 to more than 50, the highest number in six years:

Likelihood that Newsom will sign a bill prohibiting suspending elementary and middle school students for “disruption and defiance” ­— but the ban will not apply to high schools; Brown vetoed a similar bill last fall:

Tallying up 2018

Here were my 2018 predictions, with background information and how I fared. Even by today’s grade inflation, Dewey and I barely earned a Gentleman’s B this year — and then only because a couple of our predictions were, frankly, hard to measure. Here are my results. How’d you do?

Thumbs up: A brilliant call.

Thumbs down: They should have but didn’t do what I said.

No thumb: Hard to say or a partial win.

2018 predictions were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 Fensters, the same score scale used for this year’s predictions.

Goal reached:

Likelihood Brown will fully fund the Local Control Funding Formula, bringing all districts at least to the pre-recession 2008-09 level, plus inflation; many districts receive more than that. 5 Fensters. (Easy bet: It was Brown’s priority.)

And then some:

Brown will use additional revenue for funding formula initiatives: 1 Fenster. (Brown fooled me by opening up his tight wallet with initiatives for parent engagement, improving school climate, $100 million for teacher residencies in special education and $300 million in extra funding for African-Americans, the lowest-performing student group.)

Tax reform:

Likelihood that a split-roll tax, amending Prop. 13 to raise commercial and business property taxes, will gain momentum: 4 Fensters. (Supporters did gather enough signatures to qualify an initiative for the 2020 ballot, but there are rumblings that legislators will negotiate to replace it with another tax reform measure.)

Likelihood Brown, depending on revenue, will dedicate a couple of billion dollars of discretionary one-time funding and call it pension cost relief: 3 Fensters. (Districts did get $2 billion in one-time money to use however they wanted, but there was no explicit mention of pensions.)

Pension help from court:

Likelihood that state Supreme Court will chip away at, if not throw out, the right to a public pension in place at the time of hire: 4 Fensters. (Stay tuned, the decision is coming in 2019, and I’m still betting 4 Fensters.)

LCFF changes:

Likelihood Brown will negotiate changes to the Local Control Funding Formula in his final year. ½ Fenster (Brown did ward off further efforts to amend the formula, but in a compromise with Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, he included $300 million in one-time funding for low-performing African-American students.)

LCFF dialogue:

Likelihood the Legislature will hold hearings on the funding formula, creating momentum for change in 2019: 3½ Fensters. (Lawmakers didn’t waste their time on something that wasn’t going to happen on Brown’s watch. Under a new governor, restive legislators may be more vocal about modifying the funding formula.)

DACA:

Likelihood that Trump and Congress will grant permanent protections to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients: 3 Fensters. (Early in 2018, Trump suggested he’d grant protections for “Dreamers” in exchange for funding for a wall on the Mexican border, but for now, a compromise is off the table, as the partial shutdown of the federal government before Christmas proved.)

Brawl with Washington:

Likelihood that the State Board of Education will sue the Trump administration after it rejects California’s education plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act: 4 Fensters. (After months of shadow-boxing, the state board agreed to compromise language to meet U.S. Department of Education objections, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos signed California’s plan.)

Bad news for CTA:

Likelihood that U.S. Supreme Court will rule that fees to public employees unions must be voluntary: 5 Fensters. (The court’s conservative majority forecast several years ago it would overturn mandatory union fees, and the court did so in Janus v. AFSCME last June.)

Strike talk:

Likelihood that many more local CTA unions will vote to strike but then settle before going on strike: 4 Fensters. (Unions in San Diego and some other districts did follow this pattern but exact numbers are hard to measure with 1,000 districts.)

LA strike:

Likelihood that UTLA will strike in Los Angeles: 3½ Fensters. (It didn’t happen in 2018, but stay tuned: United Teachers Los Angeles has set Jan. 10 for the walkout.)

CTA’s dilemma:

Likelihood that CTA will spend more money to defeat Antonio Villaraigosa for governor than to elect state superintendent candidate Tony Thurmond: 3½ Fensters. (CTA didn’t have to spend its war chest on Villaraigosa; he didn’t make the runoff election, so it and other unions put $13 million behind Thurmond. While far short of the $29 million that wealthy donors contributed to Marshall Tuck, it was enough for a win.)

In the Legislature:

Likelihood the Legislature will establish a state-run STEM school, now that the chief proponent, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, resigned amid sexual discrimination allegations: 1 Fenster. (The idea died with Bocanegra’s political career.)

Likelihood lawmakers will pass a bill adding an extra year of probation, currently two years, for new teachers: 3 ½ Fensters (Nope.)

The Legislature will pass a bill establishing later start time for middle and high schools and Brown will veto it: 4½ Fensters. (That’s exactly what happened; Brown cited a commitment to local control in his veto message.)

Comments Policy

Harmony S Roundy6 months ago6 months ago

I am surprised not to see the Health Frameworks on here (supposed to be adopted in May), as well as how AB329, the FAIR act and "comprehensive sexuality education," are changing public education in perhaps the most significant and far-reaching way ever. Children will be slowly simmered in gender theory from TK on up, and CSE programs are more enticing than educational, and do not have a good track record in areas they've been implemented, … Read More

I am surprised not to see the Health Frameworks on here (supposed to be adopted in May), as well as how AB329, the FAIR act and “comprehensive sexuality education,” are changing public education in perhaps the most significant and far-reaching way ever. Children will be slowly simmered in gender theory from TK on up, and CSE programs are more enticing than educational, and do not have a good track record in areas they’ve been implemented, of accomplishing the goals of safer, healthier kids. Our children are being stolen from us by extreme agenda ideologues controlling the state.

John Gray9 months ago9 months ago

John Fensterwald9 months ago9 months ago

Thanks, John.

CarolineSF9 months ago9 months ago

Happy new year! To kick off the year, as I often do, I'm calling out the blatant pro-charter bias here: "Speaking of conflicts of interest, some school districts will never approve a charter, no matter how worthy..." First, it's not a "conflict of interest" for a school board to make a judgment on whether a proposal is beneficial or harmful to the district overall. That's the school board's job. Calling that a "conflict of … Read More

Happy new year! To kick off the year, as I often do, I’m calling out the blatant pro-charter bias here: “Speaking of conflicts of interest, some school districts will never approve a charter, no matter how worthy…” First, it’s not a “conflict of interest” for a school board to make a judgment on whether a proposal is beneficial or harmful to the district overall. That’s the school board’s job. Calling that a “conflict of interest” is direct from the billionaire-funded pro-charter propaganda shops. At least be more subtle. Second, “no matter how worthy” is kinda BS too since you don’t really deny that charters drain resources from the public schools, harming those schools and the students in them. If it’s the most fabulous charter proposal in the history of the world but it’ll drain the resources from your public schools and the students in them, is that “worthy”? At least have a charter skeptic read over your copy to call out and correct the bias. Maybe make that a new year’s resolution! (Cheery grin emoji)